Silence Falls
by Chevaleresse
Summary: Once three clans lived in the territories by the Big River. As Two-Legs arrived, developing the land into the Great Grey Two-Leg Place, two faded away. Left behind is SilentClan. Their territory is but a two-leg junkyard and a small strip of greenery on the Big River that looks across at the city. Starvation, disease, and doubt plague them. Will they flee, adapt, or go extinct?


An ampitheater of starfurred cats sat around the one cat without stars in his pelt. More cats crowded around him than he could see. A line of nine sat before him, the third padding away from him and back to her place in line. The fourth stood and approached him.

"With this life, I give you the strength to make the hard choices."

The fourth walked away, and the fifth came to tap his nose.

"With this life, I breathe vigor into you, so that you might inspire your Clan in times of need."

The sixth.

"With this life, I enhance your skill of reason, so that you may find the way."

The seventh.

"With this life, I remind you to not grow blind to the signs of StarClan."

The eighth.

"With this life, I will that you will see the meaning in our messages."

The ninth.

"With this life, I protect you from being consumed by doubt..."

The stars in everycat's fur suddenly rose, flying at the dusky cat in the center, and with a great flash of light everything faded away.

Fallenstar awoke from his dream, damp and cold with sweat. It was leaf-bare. Though the had packed the edges of his den with brush, the wind tunnel effect of the camp - the whole territory - cut into his den like foxteeth. He rose, shaking his long dusky pelt out from habit. There wasn't enough moss around these days to keep a good enough nest for bits of it to stick to him.

His face sagged as he poked his nose out of his treestump den. The camp was covered in a fine layer of frost. It made the edges strange shiny materials of the two-leg rubbish seem sharper. _'A dangerous thing.'_ He thought to himself. The day before, Strikekit had cut open his paw pad on a sharp bit of something that had stuck into the Nursery Cove. _'The refuse is sharp enough already...'_

He drew his broad face back inside.

Back inside the treestump den, the last fully natural place of SilentClan's camp, he narrowed his eyes to the dark. He sniffed the piddly amount of moss in his bed. He sat, staring through the small crack above to the starry deep night sky. It was hard to see any stars at all. His mother had said when she was young, there were more. His eyes dropped.

_'StarClan must have something more to say. That's the seventh time in half a moon I have relived that ritual.'_

He closed his eyes, imaginging the starry cats surrounding him in the camp. They perched on the bits and torn pieces of strange two-leg monsters and devices. A burly tom with the darkest fur Fallenstar had ever seen, even with the stars shining from within, sat right where the Fresh-Kill pile should've been. It had been empty for a day and a half. It had started growing difficult to find where the rats' new nests were.  
>The wind that stank of decomposing... everything blew through their fur, which did not move in response.<p>

StarClan did not belong in Monsters' Remains.

His mental image shifted. He imagined what SilentClan's territory must have been like, before it became Monsters' Remains. The piles of strange substances faded away and the treestump den grew into a gnarled old oak. Grass sprouted from the ground where it was not already covered by green foliage and earthy brown brush. The air was smooth and easy to breathe - the sharp acidic tang he had always known gone.

Fallenstar noticed that everything in his mind's eye now seemed to have an ethereal glow. He tried to picture anycat there, and found that he quite simply, could not.

_'That time is of the past, Fallenstar. Look at the present. Seek the future.'_

His eyes snapped open.

That voice... It almost sounded like his, but not. Had it been a chorus? He... couldn't remember it clearly anymore.

_'StarClan speaks,'_ He mused to himself, shifting his weight. His fur fluffed and he circled in his meager bed. Fallenstar lay down his head again, whiskers twitching with a tired smile. _'Clearer than before. Greasefire would say its because I can't hear them if their their usual obtuse selves.'_

He fell asleep again, and did not remember when he awoke in the morning that he had dreamed of recieving his 9 lives a second time that night.


End file.
